Two of my most memorable experiences took place in the Sistine Chapel, before the renovation, and at the Parthenon, when tourists still could walk about in it.

I laid down on the floor of the Sistine Chapel and photographed the ceiling. I remember being struck by how many people before me had been awed by it. A similar feeling overwhelmed me in the Parthenon.

Part of the beauty of seeing these places--being in them--was the sense of being *part* of the history of people who had shared the experiences.

Jesus was just a slob like one of us. Just a brute going through the filtration system, trying to make his way to the Last Supper.

Which makes me think this would be a culturally relevant update to the stories of healing the lepers: Jesus makes the unclean clean, so that all who turn to him can behold the wonders of the Sistine chapel without being scolded by a pharisaic docent.

Actually it is the organized part. So much hypocrisy. People being, "a good christian" on Sunday and jack-asses the rest of the week. Consistency.Trying to pray or buy your way in to heaven.

Not for me. You all can have it, not me. I think about the koran burning guy,Terry Jones, here he is with a christian church advocating destruction. And we actually paid attention to him. Not even worth a milisecond of my time. Jack ass.

First time I visited the Sistine Chapel, in the late '80's, the ceiling was in the process of being restored. A scaffolding system had been installed that kept most of the chapel floor free while supporting a platform at the ceiling that curved to match the ceiling's curve. The whole thing was rigged to easily move up and down the length of the chamber. However, wherever the platform happened to be, that portion of the ceiling was obscured.

When I was there they were exactly halfway done with the restoration. The platform was placed right in the middle, so the climactic God-creating-man motif was blocked, which was a shame; on the other hand it was fascinating to be able to see the ceiling with an evenly split "before and after" perspective. The contrast was amazing. The colors were much, much more vibrant and bold than what we were all used to seeing in pictures. At the time there was some controversy over the restoration, which involved a lot of cleaning -- years of incense and filthy human emanations had darkened and yellowed the images -- but some claimed that Michelangelo had purposely washed the whole ceiling in a dark varnish.

In any case, even then there was talk of the wear and tear caused to the ceiling by the throngs of tourists, so this isn't exactly a new issue.